In this week’s Sci-Fi Movies, we check out The Avengers box office and get a look at the Blu-ray cover art and details on the special features, get an update on Iron Man 3, learn new details on the Blade Runner sequel, get our first look at a clip from Prometheus, get updates on Beetlejuice 2 and the Highlander remake plus check in on Ender’s Game. All that plus much more, including a release date for Sin City: A Dame to Kill For and the latest images and videos.

GENRE MOVIE NEWS

Roberto Orci talks Ender’s Game + Orson Scott Card set visit

The first fan Q&A with Roberto Orci has gone live on the official production blog for "Ender’s Game". Here’s what Orci had to say about the film’s visual influences:

Q: What are the visual influences for the movie? Syd Mead or Star Trek? 2001 or Armageddon? Jon Berkey or Michael Bay?

Orci: Visual influences? One thing I can tell you is that Gavin Hood is a gigantic Stanley Kubrick fan, and it shows. And yet, in some of the Zero G battles, things are going on that Kubrick never had a chance to tackle. The technology and advancements in film making available to us allowed us to realize a vision that is totally unique and modern while also being, as Harrison Ford calls it, one of the most emotional science fiction movies he has ever seen.

Orci also responded to a question about whether the film will be geared towards adults or kids:

Like the book, the movie Ender’s Game is about young protagonists dealing with one of the most adult situations known to man: WAR. We don’t soft peddle it, yet we don’t shy away from the fun of being in space and learning amazing new skills that we would all want to learn at any age.

In related news, author Orson Scott Card wrote a blog post on his recent on-set visit (Card has a cameo in the form of on-screen dialog). Card revealed that a lot of what’s in the movie actually won’t be based on his novel:

I sat, off-camera, reading my sole line, which comes in the middle of a scene between Harrison Ford as Col. Graff and Asa Butterfield as Ender Wiggin.

The scene does not come from the book – very few of the scenes in this movie do – so it was amusing when others asked me how it felt to have my book brought to life. My book was already alive in the mind of every reader. This is writer-director Gavin Hood’s movie, so they were his words, and it was his scene.

Card says he came away very impressed by the acting in the movie, focusing on that aforementioned scene between Ford and Buttefield:

And they were superb. Film acting, especially in closeup, is not about facial expressions. It’s about what’s going on behind the actors’ eyes. And it’s about timing.

The scene got more and more minimal as the takes went on. What had been an arm grab and a shrug became a mere touch on the shoulder and a single glance at the hand.

And the less they did, the better the scene became. What mattered was the timing – when Ford put his hand on Butterfield’s shoulder, how long it took Butterfield to glance at the hand, how long before he looked away and when the hand was withdrawn.

Read the rest of the posting here. "Ender’s Game" is scheduled to hit theaters on November 1, 2013. In the meantime, check out this recently released [UPDATE: Fan Made] teaser poster [Ender’s Game]:

Blade Runner writer returning for Ridley Scott’s sequel + film will have female lead

With Ridley Scott’s "Prometheus" just over two weeks away from release, development is ramping up on the "Blade Runner" sequel with news this week that original writer Hampton Fancher is in talks to reunite with Scott for the sequel. It has also been confirmed that the project will be a sequel to the 1982 classic and pick up "several years" after Deckard’s (Harrison Ford) story.

In a recent interview with The Daily Beast, Ridley Scott that only briefly delves into talk of the "Blade Runner" sequel, Scott reveals that he started his first meetings on the project last week and that it will feature a female protagonist:

"…I started my first meetings on the Blade Runner sequel last week. We have a very good take on it. And we’ll definitely be featuring a female protagonist."

Watch the first clip from Ridley Scott’s Prometheus

Speaking of "Prometheus"…20th Century Fox has released the first clip from the Ridley Scott-directed / Damon Lindelof-scripted sci-fi film, which opens in conventional, 3D and IMAX 3D theaters on June 8, 2012. Watch the clip below:

Ridley Scott, director of “Alien” and “Blade Runner,” returns to the genre he helped define. With PROMETHEUS, he creates a groundbreaking mythology, in which a team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a thrilling journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race.

In other news, the track listing for the film’s sound track has been released online and the title tracks reveal plot spoilers. Check out the complete listing here. The CD will be released on June 12.

I was just talking to Shane Black and Downey and look, I think it’s a really smart way to go. After Avengers, you want to start with something really bold and inspired, and if you’ve ever seen Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, you’ve seen that when Downey and Shane get together, interesting and unexpected things happen. I’m happy to see that it’s taking a bit of a tonal shift from The Avengers and it’s going to be something completely different and exciting, and I’m happy to be a part of it.

When asked to eloborate on that tonal shift, Faveau said it would be "just a little bit more offbeat":

Shane and Robert definitely have an original point of view and an original take on the character, and I think it delves deeper into what makes Tony Stark tick and plays on the unexpected original unpredictable quality of the character that I think fans gravitate to.

Despite not being behind the cameras for the third film, Favreau will remain "very involved", adding "I’ve already been talking to them and I feel a tremendous connection to that franchise and that character, and I’m very proud to see it moving forward in a way that re-enforces that story." In casting news, Deadline reports that James Bade Dale is in negotiations to play Savin, a villain in the film. "Iron Man 3" is scheduled to hit theaters on May 3, 2013.

Sin City sequel dated for October 4, 2013 + Teaser poster released

Dimension Films has announced that the Sin City sequel, now titled "Frank Miller’s Sin City: A Dame To Kill For", has been set for release on October 4, 2013. Like the original, the sequel will be co-directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller. Rodriguez and Miller co-wrote the script with William Monahan and the sequel will be released in 3D. Original castmembers Mickey Rourke and Jessica Alba will return for the sequel. No other casting has been confirmed, although other actors from the original are expected to return. The teaser poster is included below.

Seth Grahame-Smith discusses writing Beetlejuice 2

Author/writer Seth Grahame-Smith talked about writing "Beetlejuice 2" in an interview with Movies.com, telling the site that he has already written something for the sequel:

Grahame-Smith: I have but it’s not something I’m ready to share. The original movie is very important to me, Tim, and Michael Keaton and in order for everybody to come back and not just feel like we’re doing it as an exercise in vanity or as an exercise in commercialism, we need a story that makes sense and that feels like a worthy successor. That’s not easy to do.

Grahame-Smith also discussed his process for writing "Beetlejuice":

First you go back and look at the original movie, listen to Danny’s score again and again and you try your best to capture what was special. In that movie, though, there was a lot of accidental genius in it as well. I hope we get to do it and bring everybody back but I rather not do it then do the bad- just-because-we-can version of it.

"The Dark Knight Rises" director Christopher Nolan offered a few words about bringing his "Batman" trilogy to a close in an interview with Total Film Magazine [via CBM]:

"We feel a tremendous challenge and responsibility to finish our story. We have to give the audiences something they haven’t seen before, but also fulfill their expectations of what they enjoyed in the first two films. That’s the tricky balance."

"With a sequel there is always the challenge of trying to meet or indeed exceed expectations. And some of those are based on the size, scale and world of the film. We traveled to many different places because we wanted to give it a broader canvas."

"The Dark Knight Rises" is scheduled to hit conventional and IMAX theaters on July 20, 2012.

Report: Ryan Reynolds frontrunner for Highlander reboot

Lionsgate has reportedly closed in on Ryan Reynolds to play the lead role in "Highlander", according to Variety:

Ryan Reynolds has emerged as the front-runner to topline the reboot, and though it’s unclear whether an actual offer has been made, sources tell Variety that both sides are in talks and are very interested in working together. Insiders add that Reynolds is weighing other offers and that could still pursue another project.

Juan Carlos Fresnadillo is directing the remake. Lionsgate-Summit hasn’t set a release date for the project.

Joss Whedon on returning to direct The Avengers 2 + Blu-ray/DVD set for release on September 25

Before "The Avengers" opened in the U.S., director Joss Whedon gave an interview to Hero Complex | LA Times and discussed his thoughts on returning to direct the sequel:

“You know, I’m very torn…It’s an enormous amount of work telling what is ultimately somebody else’s story, even though I feel like I did get to put myself into it. But at the same time, I have a bunch of ideas, and they all seem really cool.”

It’s important to note that this interview was taken before "The Avengers" was released in the U.S. Speaking of which, "The Avengers" stayed atop the box office charts for a third straight weekend, adding another $55.6M from domestic box office and topping the combined opening weekend debuts of "Battleship" ($25.5M); "The Dictator" ($17.4M) and "What to Expect When You’re Expecting ($10.5M). Overseas tickets added another $54.6M pushing the film’s 26-day tally to a remarkable $1.18B worldwide (#4 all-time). "The Avengers" is currently #6 all-time on the domestic chart ($457.7M through 17 days) and #7 all-time on the foreign chart ($723.3M through 26 days). "The Avengers" broke the record for fastest to $450M domestic (17 days) previously held by "The Dark Knight" which took 27 days to hit that mark. Next up is $500M which "Avatar" holds at 32 days.

Director Edgar Wright says he hopes to "shoot some "Antman" & ‘World’s End’ this year". We know about "World’s End", a production start on "Antman" would be new news, but Wright is remaining purposely vague on that front. [Empire & /Film]

20th Century Fox has hired Scott Z. Burns to work on the studio’s sequel to "Rise of the Planet of the Apes". Original writers Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa wrote a draft for the sequel and Rupert Wyatt is back to direct. [Heat Vision | THR]

Due to other commitments including the popular ABC fantasy drama series "Once Upon a Time", "TRON: Legacy" writers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz won’t be writing "TRON 3". The duo have, however, been made co-producers on the project. [Collider]

Neill Marshall is set to direct the Dracula-based film "Last Voyage of the Demeter". Marshall is now the fourth director on the project after Robert Scwentke, Marcus Nispel and David Slade were all previously attached. [Heat Vision | THR]

20th Century Fox is the frontrunner to acquire the film rights to Hugh Howey’s "Wool", a sci-fi novel based in a dystopian future. [Deadline]

Warner Brothers has announced that Alfonso Cuarón’s "Gravity" has been pushed back from its original November 21, 2012 release date and will instead slide into 2013 (day/month TBA). In addition to directing, Cuarón also co-wrote the project with his son Jonás Cuarón. [Box Office Mojo]

Sony Pictures Animation and Columbia Pictures have already begun development on the script for "The Smurfs 3". Karey Kirkpatrick and Chris Poche will develop the script. "The Smurfs 2", meanwhile, is scheduled to hit theaters on July 13, 2013. [Variety]

Summit Entertainment has signed Alex Proyas to direct "Gods of Egypt", described as "the story of a common thief and a god on a magical quest". [Deadline]

"The Avengers’" huge box office receipts will translate to a huge payday for star Robert Downey Jr. The actor is expected to pocket somewhere in the neighborhood of $50M for doing the movie. [Heat Vision | THR]

Principal photography on "Last Days on Mars" has begun. The sci-fi horror movie stars Liev Schreiber and Olivia Williams. [Deadline]

The $209M-budgeted "Battleship" had a rather soft opening weekend debut here in the US — $25.5M — but on the plus side, the early international release already has the film closing in on $250M worldwide ($240.8M — $25.5M domestic / $215.3M foreign). [Box Office Mojo]

CASTING BITES

Idris Elba has confirmed that he will reprise his role as Heimdall in "Thor 2". [Collider]

Alex Russell and Ansel Elgort are in negotiations to join the cast of MGM’s "Carrie" remake. [Variety]

Juno Temple will star opposite Angelina Jolie in Walt Disney’s live-action retelling of the "Sleeping Beauty" project "Maleficent". Temple will play one of the three pixies that take care of Aurora. [Heat Vision | THR]

oh and I have high expectations for Ender’s game. I’ve read the books and the comic books from Marvel and had been hoping for a big screen adaptation. Highlander? With Ryan Reynolds of all people? Seriously?

Ive been a comics fan for years, ran a comics shop for a few years…..right now given the choice Id go see Avengers for a second time before going to see Bats or Spidey…they both just leave me cold….now atach the ST13 trailer and Im there…

Looks like Battleship has sunk. Based on the concept, it deserved its watery fate. But I feel a little bad for Taylor Kitsch. He was in two huge flops. John Carter was good and will probably be a perennial cult classic. But still. With two megabudget flops that were supposed to make him a superstar, it looks like the poor guy’s stock is going to stay where it was when he was playing Gambit!

“Battleship” was an ill-advised concept from the start. First of all, it was based on a friggin’ board game. There was no story. There were no characters. There definitely no aliens involved. Secondly, nobody was clamoring for a movie based on the game.

The tack list for the Prometheus soundtrack hasn’t been leaked, the album has been available on iTunes for almost a week now. The score is okay, nothing great and nowhere near as good as the master Goldsmith’s Alien score. Never expected it to be.

Battleship is probably an attempt to duplicate the success of the Transformers franchise. Somebody probably thought that since Transformers were toys, and successful movies were built around Transformers, that the same trick would work with other toys-into-movies ideas.

But Transformers was also a cartoon series with a fanbase. And some imbecile didn’t figure that into his calculations. Probably his tie was too tight when he came up with the idea.

Plus, a series of stupid VFX saturated trailers created the impression of another alien invasion non-story just plain non-worth seeing.

Watching Battleship go down like the Titanic has me feeling like a jubilant Ewok at the end of Return of the Jedi.

I just listened to a few tracks from the score on youtube. Sounds pretty good. Not great but good. Very eerie, much like the trailers.

Anyway, I’m just glad Ridley Scott is back into sci-fi. Though the Blade Runner sequel doesn’t have me as excited for some reason. Seems like that’s one that shouldn’t be touched. Don’t know. Could be great….

I wish Bob Orci the best wishes for Ender’s Game. Sounds wonderful. And it sounds like his abilities will be well-placed.

Would love (someday) to see Orci and company tackle Alfred Bester’s “The Stars My Destination.” The technology exists now to REALLY do this one right (it’s been in development hell off and on for a long time). When I saw Nero’s tattooed ‘blue-collar’ Romulans in ST09, I briefly thought of Bester’s book…

And Prometheus just looks better and better every time I see it. But again, I’m still hoping (against hope) that it’s (ultimately) much more than just an ALIEN prequel. I know it takes place in the same universe (about 40 years prior), but I really think it has the potential to be so much more than just a red carpet leading to ALIEN. Here’s hoping I’m right! ;-)

And the Total Recall remake could really be something to watch if they play it closer to the source novel (“We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” by Philip K Dick) than the 1990 movie. The elimination of the Mars ‘location’ could be a step in that direction (although Mars itself does play an interesting role in the book). Colin Farrell sounds a step closer to the ‘every man’ Douglas Quail (not Quaid) originally envisioned in the book.

Again, this could shape up to be one of the best years for the genre since 1982…. ;-)

The strange thing is that I kinda liked “Battleship”. Sure, it is a “turn off the brain and watch” kinda movie, but so were the dreadful “Transformers” movies. That didn’t stop them from inexplicably making a gazillion dollars. No, there were no characters or aliens in “Battleship”, so they just made up their own. The only real in-your-face stupid part of the movie was that the characters commander the USS Missouri (a ship that has been a museum for 20 years or so now) and take her into action, complete with live ammo for her guns (no safety problems for the tourists there, no sir) but they could have tweaked the story just enough to say the Missouri had only just retired and hadn’t been turned over as a museum yet, and that would have been fine. The rest of the premise is the usual sci-fi conceit… problems with speed-of-light communications to other star systems being answered in a few years, aliens that are very powerful, but not quite powerful enough that we can’t beat them, that sort of thing. “Battleship” was hardly the first to fudge that. Same notation for “Hollywood” satellites that are always right where they need to be for the story to work. Does “Battleship” have flaws. Sure, but that doesn’t mean it is a bad movie. The international audiences seemed to like it, and I can see why.

I saw Battleship too. Perhaps the dumbest movie I have ever seen. Let me just point out some of the dumb parts that haven’t been pointed out in this thread.

1. Brooklyn Decker walks into a bar. Asks for a chicken burrito. Bartender closes microwave and says kitchen is closed. Um… it’s Brooklyn Decker. You can’t take two minutes and nuke one for her. Hell, I’d lick Decker’s boots if she asked.

2. The hero, Alex, commits the felony of breaking and entering to get a a chicken burrito for Decker. Yeah, I know it’s a joke. But it just feels dumb.

3. NASA scientists decide to send a radio signal to earth like planet. Helllllooo? Maybe the aliens aren’t nice people. If might be possible that said aliens um, might want to invade earth. Said signal looks like a laser beam. Oh, who cares about science in a turkey like this.

4. I start to root for the aliens until I find out that they are as dumb as the humans. They can travel light years and yet, they can’t drive their ships. One ship, the communications ship for the aliens, crashes into a satellite. I’m not kidding.

i personally am looking forward to ker plunk the motion picture. that should go down very well.
Apparently there is new star trek film in production. not that you’d know it…. one little picture. and i don’t mean a spy picture.

Blade Runner is an 80s film that still holds up today. Of course, it WAS spruced up a little, but still, look at other movies from that same period and there isn’t much in the same group. So as far as I’m concerned, the bar is set really high for a sequel. I’m not hopeful they can strike lightning twice, but they have the right to try, and I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt ’til I’ve seen it.

I’m more doubtful about Reynolds in Highlander, but Lambert wasn’t exactly the greatest actor when I look back on it. It will be really hard to replace Clancy Brown. His Kurgan is one of the best bad guys in movie history. When he starts waving his tongue at those nuns, you know you’re at the beginning of some really good badness.

I hope Ironman 3 is better than 2. I was pretty unimpressed with 2. It seemed to lack the heart of the first one. It was all about Stark’s narcissism and very little about the hero. I got bored by his self-absorption. That being said, it is still enjoyable to watch

On Battleship, talked about the infamous scene where the bartender refuses to nuke a chicken burrito for Brooklyn Decker. It’s been posted on YouTube by Universal and it’s below.. Another funny line in the scene. When big brother sees Alex (Taylor Kitsch) staring at Brooklyn, he tells him not to waste his birthday wish on a girl. What?! If she looks like Brooklyn Decker, are you nuts? Maybe big brother who’s in the Navy is gay. You know they got rid of “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

And speaking of the Navy, is it too much to ask our armed services not to cooperate with stupid movies. Yeah, I know Battleship is a great recruiting ad but I got to believe that dumb movies make bad ads for your service. You see it would have been nice if the military had cooperated with the goofy Independence Day, that was not as dumb. But unfortunately, the writers had Area 51 as a major plot point.

“The scene does not come from the book – very few of the scenes in this movie do – so it was amusing when others asked me how it felt to have my book brought to life. My book was already alive in the mind of every reader. This is writer-director Gavin Hood’s movie, so they were his words, and it was his scene.”

Well done, Orci. You know my opinion that Card’s book is overrated, so now that I hear you have completely rewritten the story, I am all of a sudden much more excited to see your movie!

Ryan Reynolds is horribly miscast as the Highlander. I would go with Jim Caviezel from Person of Interest as the Highlander, and (I know this will be controversial) have Mel Gibson in the Shawn Connery role.

Caviezel is the perfect understanted brooding ass-kicker to play the Highlander.

“When big brother sees Alex (Taylor Kitsch) staring at Brooklyn, he tells him not to waste his birthday wish on a girl. What?! If she looks like Brooklyn Decker, are you nuts? Maybe big brother who’s in the Navy is gay. You know they got rid of “Don’t ask, don’t tell.””

In regards to Battleship, it was a pretty terrible film. Not as bad as I thought it would be but still pretty terrible.

How long till Connect 4 the movie comes out? Imagine a giant Connect 4 board coming out from the ocean and they have to stop the aliens from getting a row of four.

Looking forward to MIB3 this week, loved the first Men in Black and the second one was disappointing but lstil have hopes for 3.

Also looking forward to Prometheus and The Dark Knight Rises. Spider Man looks cool but still think it is too soon to reboot it.
Unhappy that Total Recall has been reboot as I loved the Schwarzenegger classic but might give it a try.

One reboot I am unhappy with is RoboCop, as it is one of my all time favourite films and they are completely changing his look which angers me.me.

Nonsense. I kind of dug that they didn’t use rayguns, and that they were pretty humany — the most interesting looking movie aliens I’ve seen in a while.

There were plenty of other things that could have worked better, but those parts I definitely liked.

Why the heck does everything have to be the same as what we’ve seen before? This is what gets us gripes like “Hey, doesn’t JJ know that the turbolift doesn’t get to the bridge in 3 seconds, duh!” It’s on TV right now and I LOVE that turbolift scene.

29. Captain Ransom… I liked “Battle: Los Angeles” too. I hated “Skyline” because all the characters were spectacularly stupid in it, but I don’t think that is a fault shared by “Battle: Los Angeles” or “Battleship”. Both were fairly realistic about how the military works.

Exactly why are so many expecting “The Artist” or “Iron Lady” level writing and performances out of popcorn movies?

The “Dark Knight Rises” trailers have been awful. Hope the movie is better! Great to see “Sin City 2″ finally in the pipes. I wonder why “Prometheus” has been so heavily hyped? Almost the opposite from how JJ operates!

Thorny, I liked Battle: Los Angeles. And frankly the military acted smartly in that one and there were no groan moments. Yeah, Roger Ebert hated us for liking it. God bless him, he probably fell asleep during Battle: Los Angeles.

“Battleship” is a whole different story. I like a good popcorn movie as much as the next teenager. But you put in this movie dumb people with dumb action. And then you add in blind, dumb, terrible driving Lizard Amish Aliens. The result? A movie I could not take seriously. I laughed and groaned at the same time.

I am somewhat worried by Card’s statements about Ender’s Game. Very few of the scenes in the movie come from the book? That isn’t encouraging. But I still hold out hope. I have read the whole Ender’s series and while I like Ender’s Game, it isn’t even the third best book. It was geared towards kids (teens, young adults) much more so than the later books in my opinion.

Please tell us more about Stranded? That looks interesting. Is it going to be anything like the Sandra Bullock vehicle, ‘Gravity’ co-starring George Clooney? There has been much hype about how ‘Gravity’ is going to feature some highly new and immersive FX.

I get the feeling that MIB lll is going to suck in a Battleship sort of way. I still think John Carter didn’t deserve the bad press or vibes that it got. It was a darned good movie. Not earth shattering or mind blowing but very enjoyable. Too bad that it will never get a sequel.

Saw Avengers last night. REALLY enjoyed it. I actually think the best part of the movie was the dialogue and character interaction. Which is something since visually it was pretty awesome.

Not a single frak is given about the Spiderman reboot, Highlander reboot, Sin City sequel, or G.I. Joe sequel.

Oh and here is my take once again on the “Aliens invade earth” concept:

If an alien race has used up their resources to the point of desperation why would they waste more resources getting to earth to take ours? Wouldn’t that be counter-productive?

And if the alien race was just bent on conquering us and had the ability to get here from wherever it is they are from, do you really think we stand a snowballs chance in hell of manning any sort of resistance? If they got here at breakfast we would be extinct by lunch.

My take on the whole alien invasion thing is that if an alien race that wanted to destroy us and had the ability to get here they would have done it by now. Earth is a glimmering, loud beacon of riches in a comparitively cold and inhospitable galaxy. As many ‘earth-like’ planets there may be there are millions of times more planets that are un-inhabitable. I’m writing a story about that myself.

@53 “I am somewhat worried by Card’s statements about Ender’s Game. Very few of the scenes in the movie come from the book? That isn’t encouraging. But I still hold out hope. I have read the whole Ender’s series and while I like Ender’s Game, it isn’t even the third best book. It was geared towards kids (teens, young adults) much more so than the later books in my opinion.”

Actually, this is very encouraging. Enders Game was a great story concept, but Card’s novel wasn’t that great — one of the most overated sf novels I have ever read, and read a lot of sf novels! Card, overall, is a bit of a hack writer with stories and characters that are never quite as engaging as they should be. So I am really looking forward to Orci’s rewrite of Enders Game — because the story concept itself was very good.

Thanks, friend. I approach the prospect with a mix of trepidation and excitement.

#57-MJ

If it is encouraging that they are making an Ender’s Game movie but ignoring the source material, then why are they making Ender’s Game? I mean no offense but that doesn’t make sense to me. Either they loved the book so much that they just had to make it into a movie or they thought that the fans of the book would come out in droves to see it realized on screen.

To make an Ender’s Game movie that doesn’t have many scenes from the book and then invite the author of the novel to participate in the production, even if it was greatly limited, seems really ill-advised. It doesn’t bode well for a production to have the author publicly admit that the movie isn’t like his story, does it?

I think Ender’s Game will probably keep the basic plot/themes of the book but change scenes and dialogue to fit the medium of film. That happens often in adaptations. Look at Peter Benchley’s Jaws. The book has several subplots that were dropped for the film, and rightfully so, I think. Did we really need to see Matt Hooper have an affair with Mrs. Brody? Do we need to know about the mayor’s mob connections? Not really.

Yeah, you said that twice now. It still doesn’t make sense. Deleting sub-plots, ala Benchley’s Jaws, is one thing. Happens all the time in film adaptations. The basic story was still there with most of the scenes in the movie being directly from the book.

That’s not what Card has said, though. He says very few of the scenes come from the book. If you are doing a movie called Ender’s Game and you fail to use, I don’t know, any, many, enough, some scenes from the book and the author says so publicly, you may be committing cinematic suicide.

Your opinion of the book not withstanding, it IS a beloved work for millions of readers, who will surely be disappointed to say the least upon hearing news of this.

Thorny, I liked Battle: LA as well. The characters carry the movie and SSgt Nantz (Eckhart) gives a great speech accounting for his past mistakes. “You go left, you go right…” That was memorable to me.

Skyline? Meh.

And SOME board games do have potential good story material in them. Ouija board? Sure. Someone can craft a really good scary story around that. It’s already been done several times. You could have passed off Paranormal Activity as a Ouija Board tie-in movie. So it’s not hard to see that working.

Even Monopoly can work.

But Battleship just looked uninteresting. Like they just cared about making a movie with a board-game tie-in..and not much else. I knew right away that I was going to punish the studio who made that by refusing to help pay for it.

My favorite alien invasion movie was Spielberg’s War of the Worlds. Yes, I am aware of all the plot problems with it, but since I have made my opinion of the likelihood of alien invasion public on this comment thread you should know that I can suspend my disbelief on this subject. Plus, it had really cool ships (OK, tripods) and bugs and featured them prominently and creepily.

I wasn’t that fond of Battle: LA. I just couldn’t get into it’s depiction of an alien ground assault. I found Skyline more fun, for all of it’s horrid acting and ridiculousness. It sort of embraced it’s absurdity.

I wasn’t a fan of Spielberg’s “War Of The Worlds”. Dakota Fanning was annoying as hell, the story wasn’t interesting, and Tom Cruise was miscast yet again.

I did like “Battle: Los Angeles”. Like “Independence Day”, it was a nice throwback to the old alien invasion B movies of the fifties, just with better effects and acting, of course. Plus they used Tupac’s “California Love” in the movie.

@64 “Yeah, you said that twice now. It still doesn’t make sense. Deleting sub-plots, ala Benchley’s Jaws, is one thing. Happens all the time in film adaptations. The basic story was still there with most of the scenes in the movie being directly from the book.”

I don’t know what is so confusing about what I said? Let me explain it to you this way. If you were to summarize the story of Enders Game on a single page of paper — i.e. at a high-level — and that write a screenplay based on that, well that it what I think has been done here.

@64 “That’s not what Card has said, though. He says very few of the scenes come from the book. If you are doing a movie called Ender’s Game and you fail to use, I don’t know, any, many, enough, some scenes from the book and the author says so publicly, you may be committing cinematic suicide.”

Compare the novel of “Don Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” to the screenplay to “Blade Runner.” That is the same deal as what I am saying here, and we know how well that turned out.

If I were the aliens I’d do something simple like implant an engineered virus in a meteor and send it in our direction, inoculate my guys against it, and wait. Invasion done. But a movie where the wee Humans have no chance of rallying and bouncing back is boring.

Not to mention anyone with the tech to get a ship here should also have the tech to launch missiles at us from there home world to take out primary military targets first, but again, boring.

I liked War of the Worlds until somewhere around creepy Tim Robbins’ basement. It became less interesting after that. I loved the ship coming up out of the ground part. The whole beginning sequence was Spielbergianly brilliant.

Regarding adaptions: A good MOVIE is more than just a filmed version of the book. E.g., Kubrick didn’t exactly follow Stephen King to the letter, and yet he still made a decent horror flick out of The Shining. Dick Hallorann taking an axe to the chest when we were expecting him to save Danny was the biggest upset in movie history.

So I would argue that to make a classic movie you have to change it from the classic source material.

Yes, TrekkerChick, the aliens sink ships with flying peg shaped mines. Get it? Just like the board game. If you’re not from America, I apologize as an American for stupid filmmaking. Americans are not as dumb as Hollywood thinks we are.

There’s been some talk here about Battle: Los Angeles. (2011) It’s a good movie. It’s a simple premise. Aliens attack. Marine unit gets the job to rescue civilians. They all get caught behind enemy lines. They have to fight their way out. There’s no goofy behavior from the Marines, civilians or even the aliens. I cried when one of the civilians defends the Marines.

I’m guessing critics hated the title and savaged it. What drives me nuts, is that critics at times complain about exposition. But the movie explains why the aliens are here. They want the water. It’s a movie, I suggest that people watch and ignore the critics on this one.

@83. Well, to each his own. On III, I really did not like Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s sadistic villian (he’s an overated actor who plays the same brooding guy type over and over), nor did I buy into the really over the top plot.

@86. I haven’t seen Ghost Protocol yet, I plan to, but I don’t like Cruise enough to pay more the Redbox prices to watch his movies. I actually liked all 3 of the previous MI films, though I am the only member of my family who does (dad hated turning the main character of the original series into the villian in the first, and my brother checked out of II the second he saw the forward flip while wearing a backpack, which he says is impossible IDK). Anyway, glad to know the movie isn’t a complete waste of time.

“And Prometheus just looks better and better every time I see it. But again, I’m still hoping (against hope) that it’s (ultimately) much more than just an ALIEN prequel. I know it takes place in the same universe (about 40 years prior), but I really think it has the potential to be so much more than just a red carpet leading to ALIEN.”

Ridley Scott’s team have mentioned in a few magazine interviews that there’s an obvious reference to ALIEN towards the end of Prometheus but that the movie definitely isn’t a direct prequel in the conventional sense.

Yes I understand you, stop talking down to me. Let me explain my point to you in an equally disdainful manner:

Letting Orson Scott Card onto the set so that he can see that his book isn’t getting translated into the movie only to have him comment publicly that very few of the scenes in the movie are from the book is stupid. From a publicity standpoint.

I don’t give a frak about how they interpret the book. That’s not the point I am trying to make. They can do what they want. But not doing a closer adaptation of the book and then letting the author on set to see just that isn’t what I would call inspired forward promotion.

Also, let’s take a look at John Carter. It’s advance publicity featured scenes from some of the later books. And some scenes that just seemed to rile the large John Carter fanbase. Plus it had a great big teaser poster that removed the “Of Mars” part from the title. While not exactly the same thing, my point is that advance publicity that disappoints an established fanbase of a written work can be disastrous to a movie’s financial bottom line. The fans were up in arms and their negativity spread like a virus. John Carter ended up being one of the biggest box office disappointments of all time.

Do you understand that? Ah ha! Now you’ve been baited! Just try and avoid the hook lest your silence confirms your agreement to my argument!

@89. OK, yea, I see where you are coming from now, and agree with you on this aspect of it — yea, it is bad publicity. Also, sorry if I came across as talking down to you, but you had irritated me slightly as well by making it sound like my take on this was incomprehensible.

You are completely comprehensible. It was I that did not make my point very clear.

Plus, you gotta admit it’s sometimes fun to bait people. I seem to be as good a target for you as you are for me. Please feel free to jab me with sticks. I am comforted by the fact that you can spell and write properly.

@95. Disagree on Prometheus. Also, a lot of people on the Internet have been lambasting The Dark Knight Rises, but for myself I thought it looked OK. Additionally, I thought the Brave trailer I saw a couple of months back looked horridly boring and not funny…is their a new trailer?

Actually I did soak my head a couple of minutes ago…in the shower. I feel all clean and fresh now! :-)

“Prometheus” looks like a modern classic. Everything I’ve seen (perhaps too much) so far points to a great hard sci-fi movie.

As for “The Dark Knight Rises”, while the trailers look merely okay, I’m betting the best stuff is being saved for the actual movie. The original trailers for both “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight” weren’t all that spectacular either. Christopher Nolan knows how to tease the fans without either being cheap, or giving too much away.

The “Toy Story” movies, alongside “The Incredibles” and “Up” are Pixar’s best movies. “Cars” was good, and so was “Wall-E”, though I don’t like that one as much as I did a few years ago. Still haven’t seen “Cars 2″, “A Bug’s Life”, or “Monster’s Inc.”. “Brave” looks like it could suck balls.

Yes, I’ve read that too, but I’m just hoping that the story doesn’t just boil down to a setup to see the Alien again. From what I’ve seen, the alien part of the movie could qualify as a subplot. The bigger question of the movie (as I’m led to believe) is how is this other alien species related to humanity?

I hope Star Trek 2013 is like the great episodes of the TV series. I expect action. I could live without it but you really can’t have a tentpole movie without it. But what I want from Star Trek is brains. I hold Star Trek to a higher standard. My hope it will also be smart. Have some ideas. Give me something to think about, along with the explosions.

I want something of TOS in the next movie. I understand there has to be action to sell a movie these days but Star Trek was rarely about the action. it was about life.
The last movie was a good movie, but it was not Trek to me.
I am glad they brought Trek back from the dead but it lacks what Trek was about – for me anyway.
Not that interested in the next movie.
I like JJ, BO/AK’s work – mostly, and liked the movie but it lacked the feel of Star Trek. As a fan, it felt wrong to me.
Trek should be on TV. That is how it works best. It should be new – set way in the future.
For me Kirk and Co. have been done. They are my favourites but for me they have had their stories and they have been told well – mainly.
Let the new generation of Trek-lovers have the new crew – and all power to them.

Anthony would agree with your point as to where Star Trek belongs. He argues that Star Trek belongs on TV where more complex stories could be told. I also agree with you that Star Trek belongs on TV.

And while I have not liked all of Bad Robot’s productions, (Sixth season of Lost), they have done a great job with Fringe. Star Trek on TV can be as smart as that show. Just put it on a cable network like TNT, AMC or SyFy.

Oh and by the way, whenever I raise bringing back Star Trek to TV. there’s going to be a complaint about costs of production. CGI has brought down costs of production. Once Upon A Time and Pan Am are two examples where CGI has enabled these shows to exist. Pan Am was cancelled but I’ve read that Sony wants to send it to Amazon. So there. Star Trek has a built in audience. I believe it can be done. Make it so.